Krishna promises to hold nothing back, so that knowing this, nothing further is left for you to seek.
It sounds like a claim that every fact will become known. What is actually promised is quieter: the restlessness that sends you searching from one thing to the next finally finds its object and comes to rest.
I will declare this knowledge to you in full, together with the direct realization that confirms it, holding nothing back. Once you have known it, nothing further remains here for you to know.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just told Arjuna to listen, and now, before saying anything else, he makes a pledge about what is coming: he will hold nothing back, and what he gives will be complete in itself.
The teaching
The promise made here has a specific shape. Two things are given together: the teaching in words, jnana, and the direct experience that confirms it, vijnana, so that what Arjuna receives does not remain secondhand report but ripens into his own seeing. Then comes the large claim: knowing this, nothing further remains here to be known. That claim is easy to overhear as an inventory, as though every fact about every object were about to appear in the mind. The commentary that survives reads it more carefully. What is promised is the completion of a seeker's purpose: the restlessness that drives a person from one object of knowledge to the next comes to rest once its true object is found. Because this fruit is so complete, it is also rare, and the praise Krishna gives the teaching before he delivers it is not flattery but preparation, readying the listener for how hard such completeness is to win. Not every source behind this verse is equally full. Some acaryas leave rich, developed readings; others, most notably Madhva and Abhinavagupta here, leave only a brief, thin fragment. Where that is so, this page keeps to what is actually said rather than manufacturing a fuller voice to match the rest.
The doubt that rises
How can knowing one thing, even God, mean there is nothing left to know, when the world is plainly full of things I still do not understand?
Where the paths divide
Read through Shankara's emphasis on praise as preparation.
Shankara's extant comment here stresses two things: the praise readies the listener for what is coming, and the fruit promised is so distinguished that it is genuinely hard to win. The deeper non-dual claim, that only one reality is finally there to know and that knowing it cancels the sense of anything left over, is the argument the following verses will build; this verse is where Shankara sets the stage for it.
Read as discernment of the Lord's own distinct nature.
For Ramanuja, vijnana is the discernment that grasps the Lord in his particular, distinct form: exactly how he differs from every conscious and unconscious thing, how he is the opposite of all that should be shunned, how his qualities exceed all measure and comparison. Nothing else remains to be known not because the world dissolves, but because this discernment exhausts what there is to know about the Lord himself.
Read from a genuinely brief, two-line source.
What survives from Madhva here is a short definitional gloss, not a developed argument: 'this' names knowledge whose object is the Lord, and vijnana is knowledge of particulars. That brevity is itself worth noticing. Even in two lines, the gloss keeps knower, knowledge, and known as distinct, resisting any drift toward a single undivided experience of oneness, but it does not extend into a fuller claim about why nothing remains to be known.
Read from a fragment shared with the previous verse.
Abhinavagupta's surviving note treats 7.1 and 7.2 as one passage, with the substantive comment placed at 7.1: the pair jnana and vijnana is read as knowledge and activity together, beyond which nothing remains, since everything knowable rests on these two. This is a thin source, and any further extension, such as reading it as consciousness recognizing itself as both knower and agent, is a conditional, clearly labeled reading rather than something the fragment itself argues.
Read as the fulfillment of a seeker walking a named path.
Sridhara reads jnana as the scriptural teaching about Krishna and vijnana as the direct experience that confirms it, both given wholly and only about Krishna. What he adds is specificity about who receives this fullness: the one walking the path of the highest good, shreyas, who by this very knowing becomes kritaartha, one whose purpose is now fully accomplished.
Read as an answer to a worry about secondhand knowledge.
Madhusudana frames the verse as forestalling a specific worry: if Krishna only says 'you will know,' the knowledge might stay secondhand. His answer is that the knowledge is direct in itself, though obstacles, chiefly the failure to even suppose it could be true, can block its fruit until inquiry ripens them away. That ripening, the ordinary work of removing obstacles rather than accumulating separate facts, is itself what he calls vijnana.
The readings agree that a whole teaching is promised and that completeness is somehow reached in the knowing of one thing. They differ on what makes that completeness intelligible: whether it rests on a metaphysics not yet unfolded in this verse, on discernment of the Lord's distinct nature, on the removal of psychological obstacles, or, in the thinnest sources, on very little that survives at all. This page keeps those differences, and those silences, exactly as they stand rather than smoothing them into one voice.
A question to carry
When you imagine a knowledge complete enough that nothing further would be left to seek, does that sound like relief, or does some part of you resist the idea of a search that ends?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Receive this as a promise made before its proof: something is about to be given whole, and your part, for now, is only to listen closely enough that the words can ripen into your own seeing.
Each school is voiced from the commentators named above. Their full words, every translation, and where the schools agree and differ wait in the reading desk just below. Open the commentary desk.
Arjuna has just been told to hear how, with mind fixed on Krishna, he will come to know him fully; here Krishna makes the promise explicit, that what follows will be given whole.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
Krishna pledges the whole of the teaching, held back in no part, so that what comes next needs no supplement from elsewhere.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
Krishna makes a grand, deliberate promise here: I myself will declare this knowledge to you, in full, holding nothing back. Several readings note that the praise is not vanity but strategy, spoken to draw Arjuna's full attention before the teaching even begins, so that he receives it as complete in itself, needing no supplement from elsewhere.
What is given is not one thing but a pair: the teaching as it can be spoken, and the direct seeing that confirms it for yourself.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The verse names two things together, jnana and vijnana, and the commentators broadly read them as a pair: jnana is the teaching as it stands in words, vijnana the direct experience or realization that ripens alongside it. The pairing answers an unspoken worry, that hearing of a teacher's knowledge might leave a listener with only secondhand report rather than one's own seeing.
Completeness here means the seeker's purpose is fulfilled, not that every fact about every object suddenly appears in the mind.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The second line carries the largest claim of the verse: knowing this, nothing further remains here to be known. This is read as the completion of a seeker's whole purpose, not a promise that every fact about every object will suddenly be available; to know the one is, in the relevant sense, to have arrived.
Because its fruit crowns a whole life's search, this knowledge is rare and hard to win; the praise prepares you for that rarity.
Across Advaita, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚaṅkara · RāmānujaIn Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja’s words
Because its fruit is this distinguished, the knowledge is understood to be hard to win, and the praise is preparation rather than flattery: it readies the listener for how rare it is to reach what is promised here.
Where the record is thin for a given voice, the honest path is a brief, faithful note, not an invented fullness borrowed from elsewhere.
Across Dvaita, Kashmir ŚaivaMadhva · AbhinavaguptaIn Madhva and Abhinavagupta’s words
Where the surviving sources are thin, as with Madhva's brief definitional gloss and Abhinavagupta's fragment shared with 7.1, the honest reading keeps to what is actually said: careful, minimal notes on the verse's key terms, not a developed argument invented to fill the gap.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Ramanuja reads jnana as knowledge of the Lord's own nature and vijnana as the discernment that grasps him in his distinct particularity, seeing exactly how he differs from every conscious and unconscious thing and holds endless flawless qualities. Nothing is left over not because the world dissolves, but because knowing the Lord in this distinguishing detail exhausts what there is to know about him.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva's surviving comment is only two lines: 'this' names knowledge whose object is the Lord, and vijnana is knowledge of particulars. Thin as it is, the gloss keeps knower, knowledge, and known distinct rather than folding them into a single undivided experience; a fuller Dvaita reading of 'nothing remains' would need to be drawn from elsewhere in his corpus, not invented here.
Shaiva, in their fuller words
Abhinavagupta's extant note, shared across 7.1 and 7.2, reads the pair jnana-vijnana as knowledge and activity together, beyond which nothing remains since everything knowable rests on these two. This is a fragment, not a full commentary; any extension toward consciousness recognizing itself as both knower and agent is a labeled, conditional reading, not something the fragment itself argues.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads jnana as the scriptural teaching about Krishna and vijnana as the direct experience that confirms it, both given wholly and only about Krishna. What is distinctive is his framing of the fruit: the one who knows this becomes kritaartha, one whose purpose on the specific path of shreyas is now fully accomplished.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana treats the verse as answering a precise objection: if Krishna only says 'you will know,' the knowledge might remain secondhand. His answer is that the knowledge is direct in itself, but obstacles can block its fruit until inquiry ripens them away; what looks like secondhand knowledge becomes direct once those blocks are removed, and that ripening is itself vijnana.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
Notice the shape of the promise before you notice its content: someone is offering to hold nothing back. Sit for a moment with what it would mean to receive something whole rather than in fragments, to trust that what completes a search has already been given rather than still needing to be assembled. Let that trust, briefly, be the practice.
So receive this teaching as it is offered, whole and lacking nothing, and let the restlessness that sent you searching come, at last, to rest.
Read deeper
Everything a full study holds, folded below.
Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
rishna makes a grand, deliberate promise here: I myself will declare this knowledge to you, in full, holding nothing back. Several readings note that the praise is not vanity but strategy, spoken to draw Arjuna's full attention before the teaching even begins, so that he receives it as complete in itself, needing no supplement from elsewhere.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The verse names two things together, jnana and vijnana, and the commentators broadly read them as a pair: jnana is the teaching as it stands in words, vijnana the direct experience or realization that ripens alongside it. The pairing answers an unspoken worry, that hearing of a teacher's knowledge might leave a listener with only secondhand report rather than one's own seeing.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The second line carries the largest claim of the verse: knowing this, nothing further remains here to be known. This is read as the completion of a seeker's whole purpose, not a promise that every fact about every object will suddenly be available; to know the one is, in the relevant sense, to have arrived.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Because its fruit is this distinguished, the knowledge is understood to be hard to win, and the praise is preparation rather than flattery: it readies the listener for how rare it is to reach what is promised here.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya
Where the surviving sources are thin, as with Madhva's brief definitional gloss and Abhinavagupta's fragment shared with 7.1, the honest reading keeps to what is actually said: careful, minimal notes on the verse's key terms, not a developed argument invented to fill the gap.
Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the promise as building toward the claim, made explicit by later Advaita voices, that the knowledge in question is of the one reality underlying everything; knowing it, a person becomes all-knowing because nothing else finally stands apart from that one. His own extant comment stresses the praise-as-preparation and the difficulty of the fruit, with the deeper non-dual metaphysics of 'nothing left over' left for the verses and commentators that follow.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads jnana as knowledge of the Lord's own nature and vijnana as the discernment that grasps him in his distinct particularity, seeing exactly how he differs from every conscious and unconscious thing and holds endless flawless qualities. Nothing is left over not because the world dissolves, but because knowing the Lord in this distinguishing detail exhausts what there is to know about him.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva's surviving comment is only two lines: 'this' names knowledge whose object is the Lord, and vijnana is knowledge of particulars. Thin as it is, the gloss keeps knower, knowledge, and known distinct rather than folding them into a single undivided experience; a fuller Dvaita reading of 'nothing remains' would need to be drawn from elsewhere in his corpus, not invented here.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta's extant note, shared across 7.1 and 7.2, reads the pair jnana-vijnana as knowledge and activity together, beyond which nothing remains since everything knowable rests on these two. This is a fragment, not a full commentary; any extension toward consciousness recognizing itself as both knower and agent is a labeled, conditional reading, not something the fragment itself argues.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads jnana as the scriptural teaching about Krishna and vijnana as the direct experience that confirms it, both given wholly and only about Krishna. What is distinctive is his framing of the fruit: the one who knows this becomes kritaartha, one whose purpose on the specific path of shreyas is now fully accomplished.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana treats the verse as answering a precise objection: if Krishna only says 'you will know,' the knowledge might remain secondhand. His answer is that the knowledge is direct in itself, but obstacles can block its fruit until inquiry ripens them away; what looks like secondhand knowledge becomes direct once those blocks are removed, and that ripening is itself vijnana.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
How can knowing one thing, even God, possibly mean there is nothing left for me to know, when the world is plainly full of things I still do not understand?
The claim is not that every fact about every object will suddenly appear in your mind. It is that the specific hunger driving your search, the restlessness that sends you from one object of knowledge to the next, comes to rest once its true object is found. That is a claim about completion of purpose, not an inventory of trivia.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Ramanuja's reading suggests one reason the claim can hold without denying the world: what you come to discern is not an isolated fact but the Lord's own distinct nature, in relation to which every other conscious and unconscious thing is already understood as other than him. Seeing that relation clearly is itself a kind of completeness.
Rāmānujācārya
Madhusudana's answer is more psychological: much of what feels like an endless list of unknowns is actually one obstacle repeating itself, the failure to even suppose the deeper reality could be true. Inquiry that removes that single block does more work than accumulating separate facts ever could.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
Notice the shape of the promise before you notice its content: someone is offering to hold nothing back. Sit for a moment with what it would mean to receive something whole rather than in fragments, to trust that what completes a search has already been given rather than still needing to be assembled. Let that trust, briefly, be the practice.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, open a tradition in the doorways below, or add a voice by name above.
Also hear this verse, tradition by tradition.